Late last year Jason Wellwood had the chance to speak to the one and only John Arch, the original vocalist for US progressive metal legends Fates Warning about his recent Sympathetic Resonance collaborative album with FW guitarist Jim Matheos under the name Arch/Matheos. Here is their chat, originally broadcast on Jason’s radio program Witchfinder Radio on CILU in Thunder Bay, Ontario, in its entirety.

“I think that with these two recent records, Deconstruction and Ghost – specifically with Deconstruction in my head, I can probably write this sort of Andrew Lloyd Webber-esque sort of absurdity that, if I was in a genre which afforded me the opportunity to really go for it on the level that they’re able to do with The Lion King or The Phantom of the Opera, it would be, in my opinion, just this completely free piece of work that has no creative limits and no boundaries, and that includes everything from like the most vulgar to the most beautiful.”

Laura Wiebe in conversation with the one and only Devin Townsend.

Jason Wellwood reviews the new self-titled third album by Threat Signal and then interviews Jon Howard about the new album, touring internationally and their upcoming tour in 2012 North American tour with Children Of Bodom.

Early last week NWOBHM legends Saxon made their first stop in Toronto for a show in over twenty-five years. As astonishing as it seems, the last time the venerable British metal unit made it to Canada’s most populated city was way back in 1986. It was a long time coming, but the band played one hell of a show.

Sean Palmerston in conversation with Saxon founding member and lead singer Biff Byford,

“It’s really not our place to tell anyone how to do anything, or to make any sort of suggestion about how people should live. That’s something that we’ve never wanted to do and we never will do. That’s something that happens in a lot of music. A lot of punk music in particular has a political agenda of trying to convince someone of something. We’ve always been against that, and we’ve never wanted to appear that we’re sitting on a high horse trying to lead people. As you mentioned, living like we do is not an option for most people. It’s appropriate for us, but it’s just for us.”

Jonathan Smith in conversation with Aaron Weaver of Wolves In The Throne Room

“As evidenced by my previous review of their infectious Ain’t No Night album, Heinali and Matt Finney’s music really crept up on me this year. A taut, vivid marriage of shoegaze, post-metal and doomy spoken-word, the duo craft something very special, unlike anything I’d heard before. That they do it from separate continents, despite having never met in person, just ups the impressiveness factor for me.

I recently caught up with Matt Finney to discuss what duo have been working on recently, and what they’ve got planned for the near future.”

Kyle Harcott in conversation with Matt Finney.

All Pens Blazing writer Neil Daniels in conversation with Hellbound’s Natalie Zed

“We’ve accumulated a very dedicated hardcore fan-base. This kind of liberates you, because we kind of feel nowadays we can pretty much do anything we want, and we don’t have anything to lose because we are in the lucky position that we don’t have any pressure from the label. They never told us what to do from the beginning, and now we’re very established and, well, and we don’t wanna become the next big thing.”

Jay H. Gorania in conversation with Angela Gossow of Arch Enemy